The group, called IMAGiNE, used FM, IR kit to make their pirated recordings.

Share this story

The leader of the notorious IMAGiNE BitTorrent piracy ring, Jeramiah Perkins, was sentenced on Thursday to five years in prison, the largest sentence for the group’s five top administrators.

In August 2012, Perkins pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. After being given the maximum sentence today, Perkins was also ordered to serve three years under “supervised release” and must pay $15,000 in restitution.

As we reported in April, the group used infrared and FM receivers and camcorders to capture new releases in movie theaters. In a statement, the Department of Justice cited testimony from the Motion Picture Association of America, calling the group "the most prolific motion picture piracy release group operating on the Internet from September 2009 through September 2011."

In the group’s indictment, published last year, Perkins, 40, is quoted as telling Willie Lambert on the group’s message board in July 2010: "I called every local cinema to see what they broadcasted in," adding that "I told them a bs sob story bro…told the manager i had a hearing impaired daughter and she had a phobia about other peoples heads being on there in house equipment so i told them i was going to buy her one, so they would find out and tell me then…"

Three of Perkins’ co-conspirators were sentenced in November 2012 after pleading guilty to several counts of copyright infringement. The fifth co-conspirator, Javier E. Ferrer, is scheduled for sentencing in March 2013.

Share this story

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

58 Reader Comments

Their method was still genius, just incredible stupid to take credit for it. And for taking credit with the uploads. Seriously, I don't get that about movie pirates. I understand the concept of establishing a quality brand name for pirated goods, but why not just throw it out there and let the community figure out it's a high quality release (most trackers list seed/leech numbers). Oh wait, that's right...the mighty e-penis. Pride goeth before the fall.

The only victims of violent crime are the maimed and murdered along with their friends and family. The victims here are large conglomerates with obscene wealth and the ear of the courts. This really shouldn't be surprising. Though it is certainly not what I'd call proper justice.

I guess it also depends on if what he was convicted of was a felony or not. Many violent crimes are felonies and carry lots of other bagage than just the prison sentence. People's lives who are convicted of felonies are basically over, even after they get out, because they can't get jobs, can't vote, can't own firearms, can't do lots of things, so they just become a career criminal and go back to jail.

The only victims of violent crime are the maimed and murdered along with their friends and family. The victims here are large conglomerates with obscene wealth and the ear of the courts. This really shouldn't be surprising. Though it is certainly not what I'd call proper justice.

Nope, any violent crime will cost society a lot:

Police resources for the immediate responseMedical resources for the immediate responsePolice resources for the medium to long term work to find the guilty partCourt resources for the trialPrison resources for the guilty partMedical resources to rehabilitate the victimThe loss of tax income for the state while the victim is being treated

This can easily run into the six digit figure costs and five digit losses for a "single" victim.

This is what you get when your Government is in bed with the Entertainment Industry.So I just want to thank Imagine for the work they did do.Thanks for the Uploads !Fuck The MAFIAA & Fuck Our Government !

Proud to Be Boycotting you ! You thieved us for decades.Your Industry was founded by Piracy.Proud to be a downloader and know that my money will not go to your corrupt Business.

Think I will download The Hobbit and watch that for free ! Not that I really care what you put out nowadays as you in my house is the least of things to think about.

The only victims of violent crime are the maimed and murdered along with their friends and family. The victims here are large conglomerates with obscene wealth and the ear of the courts. This really shouldn't be surprising. Though it is certainly not what I'd call proper justice.

Nope, any violent crime will cost society a lot:

Police resources for the immediate responseMedical resources for the immediate responsePolice resources for the medium to long term work to find the guilty partCourt resources for the trialPrison resources for the guilty partMedical resources to rehabilitate the victimThe loss of tax income for the state while the victim is being treated

This can easily run into the six digit figure costs and five digit losses for a "single" victim.

I see what you're getting at, but I wouldn't consider society a victim because it costs us all money in taxes. That's setting the definition of 'victim' a little too broadly for my tastes.

Besides I was only trying to point out that who the victim is determines the sentencing. In this case, that would be large corporate entities with nigh unlimited coffers and the means to ensure their voice is the loudest.

I guess it also depends on if what he was convicted of was a felony or not. Many violent crimes are felonies and carry lots of other bagage than just the prison sentence. People's lives who are convicted of felonies are basically over, even after they get out, because they can't get jobs, can't vote, can't own firearms, can't do lots of things, so they just become a career criminal and go back to jail.

I'm not sure how general this is, but I was under the impression that any crime with a maximum sentence of less than a year was a misdemeanor, while anything longer than that is a felony. This seems to hold true in Virginia, where this crime would classify as a felony.

The only victims of violent crime are the maimed and murdered along with their friends and family. The victims here are large conglomerates with obscene wealth and the ear of the courts. This really shouldn't be surprising. Though it is certainly not what I'd call proper justice.

Nope, any violent crime will cost society a lot:

Police resources for the immediate responseMedical resources for the immediate responsePolice resources for the medium to long term work to find the guilty partCourt resources for the trialPrison resources for the guilty partMedical resources to rehabilitate the victimThe loss of tax income for the state while the victim is being treated

This can easily run into the six digit figure costs and five digit losses for a "single" victim.

I see what you're getting at, but I wouldn't consider police/medical/court/prison resources as victims. Those are just side costs to the whole thing. And some of those still apply in the case this article is describing, particularly to the courts and police.

Besides I was only trying to point out that who the victim is determines the sentencing. In this case, that would be large corporate entities with nigh unlimited coffers and the means to ensure their voice is the loudest.

Those are costs for the society directly caused by the criminal action, and incurring those costs on society should incur a price in my opinion. If I waste your resources (especially by means of a criminal action) then you are a victim of my actions, that is what I am trying to get to.

Yes, but violent felonies are a lot less serious than piracy. Piracy costs hundreds of millions of high-paying jobs, and causes puppies and kittens to die violent deaths. Every song that shows up on a torrent site costs 7% of the US economy, so one can only imagine that a poor quality camcorder grab is likely to be the end of life as we know it.

Our government can't pass a budget, renew the violence against women act, or fund Sandy relief for people who lost their homes and all the contents, but thankfully, we're on the job keeping camcorders out of movie theaters. If they weren't saving us from the pirates, I guess they'd have to go to Chicago and work on the murder rate.

Yes, but violent felonies are a lot less serious than piracy. Piracy costs hundreds of millions of high-paying jobs, and causes puppies and kittens to die violent deaths. Every song that shows up on a torrent site costs 7% of the US economy, so one can only imagine that a poor quality camcorder grab is likely to be the end of life as we know it.

It's arguable that organized piracy can do more harm to society as a whole than a given violent felony, depending what the specific nature of the violent felony is. Hell, we've had plenty of people allude to this with their gnashing of teeth over Wall Street bankers walking free...obviously "violent felony" is not the only benchmark for crimes that vocal Arsians would like to see taken more seriously.

It's also silly to try and stack sentences up quantitatively for crimes that are qualitatively dissimilar. It doesn't work that way.

Quote:

Our government can't pass a budget, renew the violence against women act, or fund Sandy relief for people who lost their homes and all the contents, but thankfully, we're on the job keeping camcorders out of movie theaters. If they weren't saving us from the pirates, I guess they'd have to go to Chicago and work on the murder rate.

The failure to pass a budget or any other specific legislation you favor has nothing to do with a lack of "man hours" to get it done, and thus the passage of anti-piracy legislation has nothing to do with it.

All the hours in the world to sit and stare at each other won't get a budget passed if you can't get enough members both chambers to vote in the affirmative. More so when procedural roadblocks are involved. Time spent on <thing you disapprove of> is never, ever, ever time spent not able to do <thing you approve of>.

If the political support (note this is distinct from public support!) was there to pass the latter, it'd be passed. Period. They don't "run out of time."

It's arguable that organized piracy can do more harm to society as a whole than a given violent felony, depending what the specific nature of the violent felony is. Hell, we've had plenty of people allude to this with their gnashing of teeth over Wall Street bankers walking free...obviously "violent felony" is not the only benchmark for crimes that vocal Arsians would like to see taken more seriously.

It's also silly to try and stack sentences up quantitatively for crimes that are qualitatively dissimilar. It doesn't work that way.

People are upset with the Wall Street bankers because they stole money from people. A cam recording of a video is a very poor quality copy, nothing is stolen. Stealing a CD from walmart is a worse crime. If they were breaking into theaters and running off with the film rolls, things might be different.

Sentences for crimes should always scale with the severity of the crime. Violent attacks or mass scale theft are much more severe than making a recording and sharing it for free, and the sentence for the former crimes should therefore be more severe.

Our government can't pass a budget, renew the violence against women act, or fund Sandy relief for people who lost their homes and all the contents, but thankfully, we're on the job keeping camcorders out of movie theaters. If they weren't saving us from the pirates, I guess they'd have to go to Chicago and work on the murder rate.

Sanity is in short supply these days.

I'm not saying that that using a smart phone, camcorder, or recording device to put low quality recordings on torrent websites isn't wrong, but the amount of effort that goes into stopping this versus the "damage" (grossly exaggerated by the MPAA) is disproportionate. At a time when we have fiscal shortfalls, this seems to be at best, a waste of resources, at worse, a total distraction from far more serious issues facing society at the behest of big movie companies.

The DoJ lost all creditability, what little they had left, okay, they're just digging their grave deeper then 6ft at this point, by cited testimony from the Motion Picture Association of America. To me, that's like Einstein citing Wikipedia as his reference for his general theory of relativity.

Firstly, you have to remember that violent crime varies considerably - punching someone in a scuffle, robbing someone at knifepoint, and shooting someone to death are all violent crimes, but are vastly different in impact.

Secondly, you have to realize that nonviolent crimes are often worse than violent crimes. Robbing someone at knifepoint is stressful, but burgling their house is usually much worse, as is burning it down even though no one was inside - and arson is not classified as a violent crime.

In this case, assuming he did $15k in damage, that's half a year's work for most Americans, so five years in jail is not really incommensurate with the damage done.

Five years is the median sentence for a robber, who seldom steals as much as $15k.

People need to recognize reality here. You are living in rationalization land.

Link I posted above says mean incarceration for burglary is 41 months (median 24 months) with median of all forms of property offense only 15 months.

You say that robbing someone's home or burning it down is worse than robbing them at knife point (debatable) but is filming a movie with a camcorder worse than any of those things? I would say it's orders of magnitude less severe. I would consider stealing a CD from walmart to be a worse crime. In all of those property crimes (median sentence 15 months) people are being denied property or money. Filming a video doesn't take money from anyone. Assuming, of course, they paid for their ticket to get into the theater. If they broke in, that's a different crime.

This is what you get when your Government is in bed with the Entertainment Industry.So I just want to thank Imagine for the work they did do.Thanks for the Uploads !Fuck The MAFIAA & Fuck Our Government !

Proud to Be Boycotting you ! You thieved us for decades.Your Industry was founded by Piracy.Proud to be a downloader and know that my money will not go to your corrupt Business.

Think I will download The Hobbit and watch that for free ! Not that I really care what you put out nowadays as you in my house is the least of things to think about.

I think you're taking the entirely wrong point from this. If anything, you should be focusing on boycotting the federal government (or a slightly more useful approach, writing to your representatives and voting, the only way someone has influence these days), or simply not watching films at all. That media groups are self interested is a given, but the government has a job in setting the laws and enforcing them and they're going about it the wrong way.

By pirating you're just helping prove their point, it's too easy to do and the industry needs protection from it.

The DoJ lost all creditability, what little they had left, okay, they're just digging their grave deeper then 6ft at this point, by cited testimony from the Motion Picture Association of America. To me, that's like Einstein citing Wikipedia as his reference for his general theory of relativity.

The thing is, Wikipedia attempts to be neutral and self-correcting to promote public knowledge. The MPAA is deliberately biased and has an agenda - to promote the companies that it represents at the expense of public interest.

There have been plenty of Wall Street Execs sent off. A good # for what is tantamount to a life sentence (they'll die before their sentence is served).

When I saw four post in thread I wondered how many of them would have been apologist. Wow 75%.

This guy will be out in 18 months with good behavior I bet. That's not too much of your life for being an idiot.

Excuse me, but what execs actually were charged in the whole recession scandal? Were any of the bank managers who were rating crappy, likely to default, mortgages as AAA and then not keeping any of the background credit info attached to them indicted? You must work in the Movie industry AND you actually believe their BS? Apologists my ass, they are citing very relevant things, like the fact that murderers, will also be on the street after 18 months with good behavior in many cases. A five year sentence for anything copyright related is BS and is what happens when your government is elected via $ bills instead of votes.

wattly: "The median sentence for violent crime is 36 months. That makes 5 years seems long."

Stop. Just stop.

The link is to sentences in the state courts,

Which is appropriate, since crimes of violence are almost always prosecuted under state law under the rules of the American federal system.

Economic and property crimes with an interstate and foreign dimension and a federal constitutional dimension are a federal responsibility.

The felony conviction for - any - crime where the feds do have jurisdiction is no joke.

Never has been.

The professional has always known this.

Whatever plea bargain you might be offered won't be particularly generous and you - will - serve hard time.

The geek can't seem to let go of the idea that his white collar crimes come with a lifetime "Get Out Of Jail Free Card."

It just isn't so, and federal law has evolved in a way to teach him precisely that lesson.

Hey look guys, yet another person who actually believes the BS from the MPAA. Im sorry but if "federal crime" = "federal time" then the problem is the fact that copyright infringement is a federal crime. Either way, 5 years for copyright is BS.

BitTorrent piracy ring ???shows how much you know. Release groups like this HATE bittorrent.

Supposedly there are private torrents. I've never done this myself, so I have no first hand knowledge.

I suggest people make a habit out of seeding legit files like a linux distro or bitlove podcasts on bit torrent to keep the service alive.

I'd like to see a still from one of these pirated movies. I can't believe the quality is any good. Plus there must be some clown or two getting up and blocking the view of the camera. Or those asses playing with their phones during the movie.

They could have used a frequency counter to find the audio track. It never occurred to me that this service even existed.

You say that robbing someone's home or burning it down is worse than robbing them at knife point (debatable) but is filming a movie with a camcorder worse than any of those things? I would say it's orders of magnitude less severe. I would consider stealing a CD from walmart to be a worse crime. In all of those property crimes (median sentence 15 months) people are being denied property or money. Filming a video doesn't take money from anyone. Assuming, of course, they paid for their ticket to get into the theater. If they broke in, that's a different crime.

Filming it? No. Filming it and intentionally widely distributing it over the internet, on multiple occaisions over the course of several years? Yes, actually.

You have this idea that piracy is somehow a lesser crime, but copyright infringement is really quite serious, as it should be. There's no real difference between him doing that and someone selling pirated DVDs from the standpoint of the movie maker - it causes them the same damage either way.

You are denying them income, and in the end, that is all that matters. When you steal a TV from someone, its not the missing TV that hurts - its the missing income. They don't need a TV, what they need is money.

You consider stealing a CD from Walmart to be a worse crime because you are engaging in rationalization, and because you are one of those people who ignores reality. You don't see hidden costs, nor do you care about them. But there is a very real hidden cost to piracy - everything that doesn't get purchased as a result. You don't see the things that don't get purchased, but it still hurts.

Quote:

Excuse me, but what execs actually were charged in the whole recession scandal?

An important thing that needs to be remembered is that unethical behavior and illegal behavior are not the same thing. You can behave unethically, but still be behaving legally. The purpose of illegal behavior is to prevent undue harm to others, but it is not to prevent all harm to others.

The main problem with the whole recession is that, by and large, a great deal of what was done was not illegal, but unethical (and bad business practice). Had the government not bailed out AIG, dozens of financial institutions would have gone bankrupt. That would have probably been the right thing to do, but they felt that the cost (the collapse of the financial industry) was not worth the benefit (punishing them for what they did). Unfortunately the Republicans fought tooth and claw to avoid making these things illegal. Now, whether corruption played a role in that is up to you (I would say that the answer to that is "yes", and it wasn't all on the Republican side either), but if something isn't actually illegal you cannot be charged.

That being said, some people were indeed charged with fraud and illegal accounting activities relating to the great recession. BofA, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, and Wells Fargo all are currently fighting in the courts. You just don't hear about it because the media got bored with reporting on it ages ago.

Really, probably more people should have been charged, but you have to have actual evidence of illegal activity, not merely unethical and stupid activity.

Quote:

Hey look guys, yet another person who actually believes the BS from the MPAA. Im sorry but if "federal crime" = "federal time" then the problem is the fact that copyright infringement is a federal crime. Either way, 5 years for copyright is BS.

Except not. If you do millions of dollars in damages, why shouldn't you be sentenced to very hard time? A human life is worth under a million dollars on average; someone who steals ten million dollars is the equivalent of someone who killed ten people from an economic standpoint.

Five years for copyright infringement is quite legitimate.

And yes, it should be a federal crime; copyright is administered federally for very good reason. You would have to be a total moron to think it should be administered by the states; its too much redundant work.

You say that robbing someone's home or burning it down is worse than robbing them at knife point (debatable) but is filming a movie with a camcorder worse than any of those things? I would say it's orders of magnitude less severe. I would consider stealing a CD from walmart to be a worse crime. In all of those property crimes (median sentence 15 months) people are being denied property or money. Filming a video doesn't take money from anyone. Assuming, of course, they paid for their ticket to get into the theater. If they broke in, that's a different crime.

Filming it? No. Filming it and intentionally widely distributing it over the internet, on multiple occaisions over the course of several years? Yes, actually.

You have this idea that piracy is somehow a lesser crime, but copyright infringement is really quite serious, as it should be. There's no real difference between him doing that and someone selling pirated DVDs from the standpoint of the movie maker - it causes them the same damage either way.

You are denying them income, and in the end, that is all that matters. When you steal a TV from someone, its not the missing TV that hurts - its the missing income. They don't need a TV, what they need is money.

You consider stealing a CD from Walmart to be a worse crime because you are engaging in rationalization, and because you are one of those people who ignores reality. You don't see hidden costs, nor do you care about them. But there is a very real hidden cost to piracy - everything that doesn't get purchased as a result. You don't see the things that don't get purchased, but it still hurts.

Quote:

Excuse me, but what execs actually were charged in the whole recession scandal?

An important thing that needs to be remembered is that unethical behavior and illegal behavior are not the same thing. You can behave unethically, but still be behaving legally. The purpose of illegal behavior is to prevent undue harm to others, but it is not to prevent all harm to others.

The main problem with the whole recession is that, by and large, a great deal of what was done was not illegal, but unethical (and bad business practice). Had the government not bailed out AIG, dozens of financial institutions would have gone bankrupt. That would have probably been the right thing to do, but they felt that the cost (the collapse of the financial industry) was not worth the benefit (punishing them for what they did). Unfortunately the Republicans fought tooth and claw to avoid making these things illegal. Now, whether corruption played a role in that is up to you (I would say that the answer to that is "yes", and it wasn't all on the Republican side either), but if something isn't actually illegal you cannot be charged.

That being said, some people were indeed charged with fraud and illegal accounting activities relating to the great recession. BofA, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, and Wells Fargo all are currently fighting in the courts. You just don't hear about it because the media got bored with reporting on it ages ago.

Really, probably more people should have been charged, but you have to have actual evidence of illegal activity, not merely unethical and stupid activity.

Quote:

Hey look guys, yet another person who actually believes the BS from the MPAA. Im sorry but if "federal crime" = "federal time" then the problem is the fact that copyright infringement is a federal crime. Either way, 5 years for copyright is BS.

Except not. If you do millions of dollars in damages, why shouldn't you be sentenced to very hard time? A human life is worth under a million dollars on average; someone who steals ten million dollars is the equivalent of someone who killed ten people from an economic standpoint.

Five years for copyright infringement is quite legitimate.

And yes, it should be a federal crime; copyright is administered federally for very good reason. You would have to be a total moron to think it should be administered by the states; its too much redundant work.

Except that those "millions of dollars damages" are so far exaggerated it isnt funny. Those supposed lost dollars assume that people who download pirated films, each and very one of them, would have bought or paid to see the movie in the first place. This just isnt true. Ive downloaded many movies in my day, and Ive bough just as many. But, those that I downloaded, I would have never paid for at the time. Some, Ive purchased after the fact cause it was a good movie and I wanted DVD quality, which is NOT there on IMAGINE, aXXo, or any other release groups torrents. The sound is bad, frames have been removed, color depth taken away to save file size, etc etc etc. Also, your pirated goods example is a bad one as well. That is only a crime because the MPAA says so and the fact that those people can actually make money off of pirated, lower quality goods, is BECAUSE of the industry itself charging exorbitant prices that do not fall in line with the cost of production. Copyright protection is a privilege we give to content producers, it is a gift, not a right. Piracy comes along when the IP holders abuse that gift and milk consumers for more than the content is worth. Same goes for knockoff goods. Apple created the situation with Android taking off and iPhone clones by making the exclusivity agreement with ATT. If not for that, consumer would not have been screaming for iPhone knock offs on Verizon et al. And, if the movie industry wants the higher profits that come with limited monopoly powers granted by copyright, they have no right cry foul when others take advantage of the fact that the IP holders are milking everyone, and produce similar knock offs. Its a kind of double dip. They cant have their cake and eat it too. Ive posted a better description in another thread recently, but cant be bothered to look it up right now. You my friend, are blinded by MPAA propaganda and I wouldnt doubt if you are a shill.

Private financial interests really do own the American government now, don't they?

Since these are cams this guy almost certainly wasn't even costing the MAFIAA any money. Watching a cam is not a replacement for either going to the cinema or watching a DVD etc.. The new record ($10 billion!) set for U.S. box-office sales last year (even though cams were available for every damn movie) clearly bears this out. All I can figure is they are punishing him for having the gall to touch their stuff.

Hey look guys, yet another person who actually believes the BS from the MPAA. Im sorry but if "federal crime" = "federal time" then the problem is the fact that copyright infringement is a federal crime. Either way, 5 years for copyright is BS.

Except not. If you do millions of dollars in damages, why shouldn't you be sentenced to very hard time? A human life is worth under a million dollars on average; someone who steals ten million dollars is the equivalent of someone who killed ten people from an economic standpoint.

Five years for copyright infringement is quite legitimate.

And yes, it should be a federal crime; copyright is administered federally for very good reason. You would have to be a total moron to think it should be administered by the states; its too much redundant work.

I think this is the important part, and it's likely the dividing line between a lot of posters. It seems that in your mind, each cam video that is downloaded = $10 in damages, as if each download removes one person from paying movie ticket prices. That's one way to look at damages, and it's now the MPAA would like you to do it, but it's not (IMO) a very accurate way to account for costs. It's difficult to place ANY dollar amount for the damages, and particularly so with these cam videos which are significantly lower quality than the commercial option.

Most of the studies I've seen have found little to no economic impact from piracy. If you've found a (non MPAA funded) study that finds a different conclusion, I would be happy to take a look and re-evaluate my position, but at the very least I think it's clear that it's VERY difficult to assign any dollar amount for damages, and clearly that dollar amount would be significantly less than the original cost of the item.

Now, where you CAN apply actual $ damages is in commercial copyright. Someone selling illegal copies of DVDs on the street for cash is clearly taking money that could have gone to the studios for that same content. However, when that content is being distributed electronically, I would wager that the vast majority of users had no intention of paying money for the content, whether it was available to pirate or not. I saw this a lot when I lived in the dorms; people would download movies/music that they had no intention of ever watching or listening to. The files were likely never even opened, and later deleted when they ran out of space. Those downloads didn't cost anyone anything (well, maybe the university ISP...).

The difficulty in assigning any damage to this activity is what makes a 5 year sentence seem too long, especially for a first offense. You say that you find this activity worse than burning down someone's home, but I just don't think I'm ever going to be able to see it that way.

There is actually a rather large list of people from the financial sector who are serving time for financial crimes, I can't cite it but someone posted it in the last thread where people came out of the woodwork to grief a particular sentence.

People are acting like this guy is getting five years for just recording a movie. If that's what it was, he would have never even gotten to court. Copyright infringement, like it or not, is a crime, and when you commit crimes repeatedly in an organized fashion its a much bigger deal than a single offense.

You really do need to take into account that one hand-picked sentence can't really be compared to another. Consider that most violent crimes aren't actually ones where someone gets hurt. Holding up someone with your finger In your pocket is a violent crime. Consider that some Joe only getting 3 years for X doesn't mean that Bob doesn't deserve 5 for doing the worst type of Y. Or, you know, just continue to throw up your hands at the injustice of everything.

Ah but see, this is America. Violent crime isn't impacting big business. Big Business snaps it's fingers, and the courts follow the line.

Same here in Ireland. If you're wealthy, and you know it, clap your hands (and you get out of jail early). If you're a poor sod and you know it, you'r sh..t out of luck (and you automatically get longer jail sentence). For example, in the papers here a few weeks ago we have on the front page one person leaving jail, and one entering jail. On the same page, a wealthy man guilty of attempted violent rape gets out of jail after four and a half months. An unemployed builder, who put in the wrong colored glass in his own home (and cannot afford to replace it), gets six months.

You say that robbing someone's home or burning it down is worse than robbing them at knife point (debatable) but is filming a movie with a camcorder worse than any of those things? I would say it's orders of magnitude less severe. I would consider stealing a CD from walmart to be a worse crime. In all of those property crimes (median sentence 15 months) people are being denied property or money. Filming a video doesn't take money from anyone. Assuming, of course, they paid for their ticket to get into the theater. If they broke in, that's a different crime.

Filming it? No. Filming it and intentionally widely distributing it over the internet, on multiple occaisions over the course of several years? Yes, actually.

You have this idea that piracy is somehow a lesser crime, but copyright infringement is really quite serious, as it should be. There's no real difference between him doing that and someone selling pirated DVDs from the standpoint of the movie maker - it causes them the same damage either way.

You are denying them income, and in the end, that is all that matters. When you steal a TV from someone, its not the missing TV that hurts - its the missing income. They don't need a TV, what they need is money.

You consider stealing a CD from Walmart to be a worse crime because you are engaging in rationalization, and because you are one of those people who ignores reality. You don't see hidden costs, nor do you care about them. But there is a very real hidden cost to piracy - everything that doesn't get purchased as a result. You don't see the things that don't get purchased, but it still hurts.

Quote:

Excuse me, but what execs actually were charged in the whole recession scandal?

An important thing that needs to be remembered is that unethical behavior and illegal behavior are not the same thing. You can behave unethically, but still be behaving legally. The purpose of illegal behavior is to prevent undue harm to others, but it is not to prevent all harm to others.

The main problem with the whole recession is that, by and large, a great deal of what was done was not illegal, but unethical (and bad business practice). Had the government not bailed out AIG, dozens of financial institutions would have gone bankrupt. That would have probably been the right thing to do, but they felt that the cost (the collapse of the financial industry) was not worth the benefit (punishing them for what they did). Unfortunately the Republicans fought tooth and claw to avoid making these things illegal. Now, whether corruption played a role in that is up to you (I would say that the answer to that is "yes", and it wasn't all on the Republican side either), but if something isn't actually illegal you cannot be charged.

That being said, some people were indeed charged with fraud and illegal accounting activities relating to the great recession. BofA, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, and Wells Fargo all are currently fighting in the courts. You just don't hear about it because the media got bored with reporting on it ages ago.

Really, probably more people should have been charged, but you have to have actual evidence of illegal activity, not merely unethical and stupid activity.

Quote:

Hey look guys, yet another person who actually believes the BS from the MPAA. Im sorry but if "federal crime" = "federal time" then the problem is the fact that copyright infringement is a federal crime. Either way, 5 years for copyright is BS.

Except not. If you do millions of dollars in damages, why shouldn't you be sentenced to very hard time? A human life is worth under a million dollars on average; someone who steals ten million dollars is the equivalent of someone who killed ten people from an economic standpoint.

Five years for copyright infringement is quite legitimate.

And yes, it should be a federal crime; copyright is administered federally for very good reason. You would have to be a total moron to think it should be administered by the states; its too much redundant work.

It's all nice and great but considering that there is no objective evidence that copyright crime actually results in real damage to the society (or even the mentioned companies) the punishment should fit the crime. That is no punishment as the crime was insignificant.

I know that people who are most likely paying you are claiming billions up on billions in damages but claiming something doesn't make it true (except here where a lot of back room $ change hands and lo and behold, government is citing same numbers with exactly same non existing evidence backing them up).

There is actually a rather large list of people from the financial sector who are serving time for financial crimes, I can't cite it but someone posted it in the last thread where people came out of the woodwork to grief a particular sentence.

I'm assuming all parties with knowledge of wrongdoing at each institution received proportionally hefty fines and sentences, along with their firms being broken up, no? Such a comparison would be asinine, otherwise.